Portrait of Bianca degli Utili Maselli, Holding a Dog and Surrounded by Six of Her Children, c. 1603-1605 by Lavinia Fontana (1552-1614)
Lost, 1886 by Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931)
“The Unhappiness of Being a Single Man”
by
Franz Kafka
translation by
Alexander Starritt
It seems a terrible thing to stay single for good, to become an old man who, if he wants to spend the evening with other people, has to stand on his dignity and ask someone for an invitation; to be ill and spend weeks looking out of the corner of your bed at an empty room; always to say goodbye at the door; never to squeeze your way up the stairs beside your wife; to live in a room where the side doors lead only to other people’s apartments; to carry your dinner home in one hand; to be forced to admire children you don’t know and not to be allowed to just keep repeating, “I don’t have any”; to model your appearance and behaviour on one or two bachelors you remember from childhood.
That’s how it’s going to be, except that in reality both today and in the future you’ll actually be standing there yourself, with a body and a real head, as well as a forehead, which you can use your hand to slap.
“Fun City in Ba’dan” was published in Arcade, vol. 1, no. 4 in the winter of 1975. The story is an excerpt from William S. Burroughs’ then-novel-in-progress, Cities of the Red Night and is illustrated by underground comix legend S. Clay Wilson. The front matter includes a portrait of Burroughs that doesn’t show up in the story.
The rest of the story (NSFW) is after the jump:
Clinic (Phase IV), 2021 by Eric White (b. 1968)
Biblioklept 